So far, it appears that the update hasn't actually been taken down; owners of Samsung handsets that have been notified of the update are reporting that they are still able to attempt to install it. One possible explanation is that Microsoft has stopped sending out new update notifications, but left existing ones intact.

While exact numbers are hard to come by, the withdrawal of the update is an indication that the problems are no mere isolated incidents. Reports of the update failing to install (but not damaging the phone) are widespread, and there are numerous reports both on Microsoft's support forum and Twitter (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) of outright bricking. Both the Omnia 7 and Focus handsets are confirmed to be affected.

Susceptibility to the problem, as well as the extent of the damage caused, both appear to have some dependence on the firmware version used on the handset. Samsung has released several different firmware versions for the Omnia 7, and while the newest versions seem to generally work fine, certain older ones do not. These firmware issues might also be compounded by bugs in the Samsung bootloader; phones with version 4.10.1.9 of the bootloader apparently cannot switch into download mode, which is used to recover from bad flashes. Both newer and older bootloaders are fine.

Whatever the cause, this is something that needs to be fixed soon. The first "real" feature patch will be shipping shortly, and because all Windows Phone 7 updates will be cumulative, it will include the current problematic patch within it. There's no getting around the problem.